


everything goes away

by middlecyclone



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Angst, M/M, POV Second Person
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-05-28
Updated: 2013-05-28
Packaged: 2017-12-13 05:57:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,018
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/820806
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/middlecyclone/pseuds/middlecyclone
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>You are surprised when everything collapses around you, but you shouldn't be. You're even more surprised when Stiles builds it up again, but that too was to be expected.</p>
            </blockquote>





	everything goes away

**Author's Note:**

> Unedited, written at 4am. Probably needs some content warnings for depression and/or anxiety, but I don't think it's too triggering.

Every time you inhale it is like your lungs are cracking, shredding, burning to pieces, and not just from the asthma. Every breath is agony, torture; every time your heart beats in your chest you are surprised it doesn’t just crumble into pieces. 

You are always tired. 

Then you change, you feel sharp filthy teeth sink themselves into your abdomen and you scream with the agony, and when they rip through the flesh and leave you there, with a literal hole in your side to match the figurative hole in your chest, you are different. 

You are stronger.

The full moon comes, and you can feel your bones cracking and melting; you can feel your body tearing itself apart only to recreate itself, but wrong. And you can breathe, finally; you open your mouth to the cool night air and nothing seizes in your lungs; your heart beats and the rhythm is a dull ache now. Your mind is racing three times faster than it ever had to before, whirling from plan to plan as your life plan warps and disintegrates around you. Your body heals itself, but this strange horrible magic can only do so much; your body isn’t tired anymore, because this creature that has become who you are now won’t allow it. But your soul is exhausted.

Everything changes, then.

Dark hair, dark eyes, dimples; pale skin, bright against the night sky. You watch, and you smile, and something clicks into place within you. You kiss her, sparkles going off inside your chest, and they burn, but it’s a better burn than you’re used to.

You’re still broken, but you start to put yourself together, a little bit.

Then everything collapses, crashes down around you; people you thought you could trust turn against you. Your tentative new life goes up in flames, and you go up in smoke. You want to be done with this. You want to be normal. You want to be happy, even though you can’t remember the last time you were truly happy, without this knot of anxiety that settled inside you and didn’t leave.

That’s a lie.

You remember it, remember it oh so clearly; age nine, sitting on your back porch, grape popsicle in hand, sticky juice dripping down your hand and wrist and arm, a drop landing on your shirt, on your leg, on your mud-covered bare feet. You frown, look up, see wide brown eyes crinkled in mocking laughter, and grin. You lean over, dripping more sticky purple juice on Stiles’ shirt too, and press sugarsweet young lips to his cheek. Wide brown eyes widen in surprise, mouth curls up in a smile, and you smile back, and everything is right in the world.

Nowadays, not everything is right in the world.

You can’t trust anyone, and nobody trusts you, and you are scared for yourself and your mom and your friends. You can’t sleep at night, because every time you close your eyes pictures of blood and pain imprint themselves on the back of your eyelids. You slide out of bed exhausted and drained, and you go through your day like a helpless robot, and you do what you have to do. And there are flashes of good things, bright moments in the dark turmoil that is your life now, but you can never let go of that buzz in the back of your head warning you that, at any moment, all of this can and will destroy you.

You are destroyed, not all at once like you thought, but piece by piece.

That little bit of rightness that clicked its way correct in your heart slides out of place again, and things are harder than before for the knowledge of what could be. Life settles down again, briefly, the calm before the storm, and you can feel your whole body going concave with force around the hollows beneath your eyes. 

It’s summer.

You sit on your back porch, your best fried beside you; there are no popsicles this time. You sit, and you wait for the impending doom, and you try not to let you worry show, but you know it does. 

You know it does.

“Oh, fuck this,” Stiles says, and you pause, confused, and his hand curls around the stretched-out collar of your worn t-shirt. “It’ll be okay,” he tells you firmly, and presses his sugarsweet lips against yours. You pause, considering, and then you inhale, breathe him in, press your hands against his narrow chest and kiss him back, hard, lips sliding together, hot and wet in the cooling air of the evening. The sun sets in the sky, but there’s still a light burning behind your eyes; the darkness of night is coming to take away the day, but for the first time in years it can’t take away who you are. You kiss Stiles, slow but urgent, languid but with a hint of frenzied passion, and the wrongness in your heart slides back into rightness, clickclickclickwhirr, and you exhale into his mouth your relief, breathe into him your wholeness.

You breathe, and your chest expands, and there’s no stab of pain; you feel your heart thumping with adrenaline and something else. You feel your heart beat, and it’s not broken. You are not on the brink of falling apart.

You kiss Stiles again, pouring into him all the love and joy you can muster, and he pours it back into you, a feedback loop of friendship and delight. He pushes you backward, and you feel splinters from the porch dig into your back, and you don’t care at all, just curving up into him like he’s your salvation.

Because he is.

He can’t save you from the pull of the full moon, from the twang of bowstrings or the rasp of claws. He can’t save you from poison, or smoke, or knives. He can’t save you from betrayal, from misplaced trust, from loss and disappointment. But he can save you from yourself, and that’s what you really need right now.

You kiss Stiles, and things are right. 

You kiss Stiles.


End file.
